My Front Page Scandal

An emergency room attendant wheeled a chair toward them. Brooke was still staring into the wallet. “David Carerra,” she read off his license. “I’ll be damned. You’re David Carerra, the baseball player?”

The attendant pried David loose and guided him into a wheelchair. He raked back his tangled hair. When his hand pulled away, blood glistened on his fingertips.

Brooke’s mouth was agape. He winced, knowing he was losing her. “That’s right, David Carerra. Like I told you—I’m notorious.”

“IS IT TRUE?”

Brooke gave her head a shake. She’d dozed off, huddled inside the injured man’s denim jacket, his helmet nestled in her lap as she sat up in one of the hard plastic chairs of the emergency room. She pulled back the sleeve to check her watch. Ninety minutes, it’d been, and still no sign of him. A nurse had told her to wait, but for how long?

“Yo, there. Is it true?” asked the man across from her. He was grizzled with several days’ growth of a beard. The ice pack applied to his left wrist leaked onto his Patriots jersey and moth-eaten gray sweatpants.

“Is what true?” Brooke tightened her knees, then lifted her hand to brush away the hair hanging in her face. What do you know—she had tendrils.

“You came in with David Carerra.”

She grimaced at the splotches of blood on the jacket cuff. “I guess so.”

“That turncoat son of a bitch.”

Brooke’s gut knotted. “What?”

The man tightened the wrap on his wrist. “Weren’t no Series for the Sox this year, y’know?”

“And you blame Mr. Carerra?” Brooke followed baseball at a once-removed distance. Her late father had gone to the games, occasionally with Joey or Katie, but he’d left Brooke out of the invitation after she’d taken along a sketchpad once too often.

Even so, she knew David Carerra. He was the pinch hitter whose home run had won the previous season’s World Series for the Red Sox. For a time, Carerra had been the toast of the town, a shaggy-haired rebel who’d stepped off the bench and become the city’s unlikeliest of heroes. Opinion had turned against him the past season. Even though he’d been elevated to a starting position and had been performing well, he’d suddenly quit the team at a midpoint losing streak. After that, the Sox had sunk even lower in the standings, a galling comedown after the championship year. Speculation about Carerra’s defection had run rampant the columns of the city’s sportswriters. Rumors had run wild among the stunned fans.

“He sure didn’t help,” the stranger said. “What’s with the guy, quitting like that? Steroids? Drink?” He looked her up and down. “Sexual addiction?”

Brooke’s thigh muscles squeezed even tighter. She pulled the jacket closed over her chest and gave the man a lofty look down her nose, using an expression and tone borrowed from her Great Aunt Josephine, who could drop the temperature of a Sub-Zero with one glance. “I couldn’t possibly say.”

“Yeah, well, you tell him he turned his back on a town that don’t forget.”

If I ever see him again. Brooke looked away. She had his wallet, jacket, helmet and keys. She had to see him again.

Feeling decidedly displaced from the ninety-to-ten ratio of her normal appearance, she rose up on the unstable spike heels and set her sights on the nurses’ station. Maybe Carerra had been admitted for overnight treatment and they’d forgotten to tell her.

She arrived at the desk without turning an ankle or splitting a seam just as the attending nurse hurried off to take care of a scuffle that had broken out in the curtained examining rooms. First a drunken lout bellowed, then came a shout and a crash. A knot of white coats hustled a patient from the area.

David Carerra. Over his shoulder, he gave the drunk a rude gesture, Southie style. Someone shoved a clipboard at him. He scrawled a signature, looked up and saw Brooke. A doctor was reeling off instructions, but Carerra brushed her off.

He walked over and stood before Brooke, his hands riding low on his hips. “Whaddaya know? It’s my angel of mercy.” His voice was thick and slow and sweet. She wondered what kind of medication he was on. “Hey, there, beautifulll.”

“I’m Brooke.” He’d pinned her with his eyes. They were bright green and hugely dilated. She felt her own widening. Even battered, disheveled and disgraced, David Carerra was too much man for her to take in. “Brooke Winfield.”

He smiled with only one side of his mouth—crooked and cocky. Sticky spikes of hair had flopped over the wide bandage wrapped around his head. “I remember.” His gaze dropped. “Especially the dress.”

She shuffled her feet together, clutched the jacket collar. “I don’t usually wear—” She stopped. He doesn’t need to know that. “This is yours.”

“The jacket? Keep it.”

“You’ll be cold.”

“They gave me painkillers. I’m comfortably numb.”

“Mr. Carerra,” the doctor interrupted. She handed him a prescription form. “You may have a headache for a few days, and you’ll need to clean your wounds properly.” She glanced at Brooke. “I’ll discharge him to your care. Our tests showed no sign of concussion, but it’s best if you keep an eye on him for the next twenty-four hours.”

Brooke blinked. “Me?”

David spread his hands. “Angel?”

“I couldn’t possibly—” Brooke’s voice halted again at the shock of hearing herself sound exactly like Great Aunt Josephine, even when she hadn’t meant to. While she wasn’t sure where to take the rest of her life, she knew that emulating her prim-and-proper aunt was not the way to go. And dressed as she was, with the city’s most rebellious bad boy in tow, there was no telling where the night might lead.

“Thank you.” She removed the prescription from the doctor’s hand. “I’ll look after him.”

2

CAMERA FLASHES BLINDED David the instant he stepped outside of the hospital. He winced and threw up his arm to block the photographers’ shots. Returning to Boston had been a bad idea even before the accident. Now every rag in the area would have a heyday, plastering his ravaged face on their front pages.

“Carerra!” called one of the circling vultures. He recognized Bobby Cook, a wannabe sports writer who slummed for the Insider, a tabloid that preferred flash and trash to legit reporting. Cook had been raking through David’s past since his retirement, looking for the buried muck. Little did Cook know that he’d need more than a rake. Maybe a back hoe.

“What happened tonight?” shouted a reporter. “Were you drunk?”

“Where’ve you been?”

“Why’d you come back?”

“Who’s the chick?”

The questions came in quick succession. David made no reaction.

“Hey, ya lousy quittah,” shouted someone at the back of the group. Probably a photographer, hoping to provoke a response. David was much too familiar with their tactics. “Look this way, jerk-off.”

David grabbed Brooke’s hand and shoved through the gathering of journalists. He pushed her inside the waiting cab, following so closely he almost landed in her lap. Without bothering to disentangle their limbs, he slammed the door shut, clipping a protruding lens. The photographer went reeling.

David met the driver’s flat glare in the rearview mirror. “Floor it.” The man grunted, but the cab took off with a jerk.

“What was that about?” Brooke was flush with outrage.

“Read tomorrow’s paper and you’ll find out.”

She put her hands on his chest as if to push herself away. “Will it be the truth?”

“Who cares?”

She gave him a slow blink. “Bitter much?”

His face was stiff and bruised, and it hurt when it moved. He laughed anyway. “You’re supposed to be my angel. Don’t I get any sympathy?”

They were still entwined. He was aware of every detail about her—the thick lashes, the shallowness of her breathing, the jut of her sharp chin and slight quiver of her bottom lip, the press of her thighs and the shadowed crevice between them where her dress had slipped too high. She was an interesting mix of innocence and provocation.

He curved a hand around her thigh—taking his time—and lifted it from his. She yanked it away as if he’d tried to molest her and scooted across the seat, giving her skirt a violent jerk that must have come close to snapping a few of the leather bands.

With her legs clamped together, she smoothed back her hair. “I didn’t realize that Boston had that many paparazzi.” Even though she was obviously trying to sound unflustered, there was a tremor in her voice.

He shrugged. “Just enough to be annoying.”

“Was that why you were speeding on your motorcycle in the first place, to get away from them?”

“Yeah. They were way back, but closing in. I thought if I banged a U-ey, as you locals say, I might lose them.”

She rubbed a knuckle across her mouth. “I watched from the window. You bounced off a lamppost and scraped the curb.”

“What window?”

“Worthington’s. I’m a display artist—a window dresser.” She looked down at herself and sucked in a gasp. “I have to go back. I—uh…” She put one hand on her thighs, crossed the other arm over her breasts. “I left the window in a mess.”

“Where is this place, exactly—Worthington? I can pick up my bike, if it’s still there.”

She gave the driver a Newbury Street address on the ritzy northern end. “You don’t know O.M. Worthington? It’s a venerable department store. A Boston institution.”

“Sounds vaguely familiar.” With a tired sigh, he relaxed his aching body against the seat. The last time he’d been this sore, he’d run into a two-hundred pound catcher at home plate. “They sell designer dresses and stuff, right? I’m not a big shopper.”

She pinkened at his lazy perusal. Very little of her was visible under the oversize jacket, but if the leather S&M dress was any example, he should shop more often.

“We sell everything,” she said quietly.

“Shoes?” He knew what women called her kind of shoes. Come do me. The throbbing desire to take her up on the unspoken invitation rivaled all his aches and pains added up together.

He closed his eyes. You’re in enough trouble. Don’t ask for more. “Do you sell good reputations? I seem to have lost mine.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. I’m sure you had your reasons for quitting the team.” She didn’t ask what they were. A proper Bostonian to the core, even if the outside told another tale.

“Then you know who I am.” What he meant was, you know what I did.

The decision to get out of baseball had been rash and stupid, born out of his shame over his past. He’d regretted it ever since, but didn’t know how to repair the damage without giving himself away. After all his hard work the loss of his career stung, sure, but what he really disliked was having an entire city thinking the worst of him.

He’d quit baseball so that wouldn’t happen.

But karma was a bitch. And, as his redneck dad always said, blood will tell.

“I saw last year’s World Series, along with the rest of the city,” she said. “I went to the parade, too. You rode a fire truck with some, um, girls.” Brooke sounded less accepting than he’d expect of a woman dressed the way she was. “You know. Bimbos.”

The cab hit a pot hole and David cringed. A hundred little pain demons were beating the inside of his skull like a bass drum. “Not bimbos. Groupies.”

His memories of the parade were vague, but he knew that a whole squadron of groupies had climbed aboard the fire truck mid-route to smother him with champagne and kisses. The firefighters driving hadn’t minded. They’d gotten the leftovers.

“Groupies?” Brooke sniffed. “Same difference.”

By his standards, it wasn’t that late, but David had already had a long night. He wasn’t very alert, and certainly not thinking straight. Still, he knew something wasn’t kosher with the Brooke that he saw and the one who spoke and reacted like a far more conservative woman.

He lifted his head and squinted at her. “You work in that outfit?”

Her lips pressed together. “Not usually.”

“Were you planning a night out?”

“No. No plans.” She blinked. “I mean, I was supposed to meet friends, but I called while you were being examined and said I’d been delayed and might not make it. So, um, no definite plans.”

“You have them now. My doctor’s counting on you.”

Her head pulled back a fraction. “I know I promised to look after you, but please don’t expect me to go home with you.”

“Fine. I don’t have a home. I have a hotel room.”

She widened her eyes. “Then I really can’t stay with you.”

“Why not? You’re single.” He could tell.

“The problem’s not me.”

It’s you. David winced.

“It’s my family. They’re…old-fashioned.”

Dodged that one. His usual cockiness was no match for the gratefulness he felt. Bad rep, be damned. His angel didn’t despise him the way the rest of the city’s population seemed bent on doing.

He touched his tongue to his dry lips. Post-Series, in the heady days of fame and adulation, his life had changed. He’d partied with team sponsors and city bigwigs instead of the working-class guys he’d normally gravitated toward. Along the way, he’d been introduced to plenty of high-society women like Brooke, women who oozed culture and refinement. He’d felt awkward around them until he’d realized they expected the same out of him as any other female—a rough-and-tumble, good old Georgia boy who could charm them out of their satin underdrawers.

David would bet his Series ring that Brooke came from one of Boston’s conservative Brahmin families, which meant that her upbringing was miles away from his own, in every way possible.

But there was also the revealing dress and the do-me shoes to consider….

“So don’t tell them,” he said. “Your old-fashioned family.”

“You have paparazzi. They’ve already taken photos of us. I can’t be a part of—”

He waved her off and closed his leaden lids against the glare of streaming headlights. “No explanation needed. I get it.”

An extended silence made him crack an eye. She’d dropped her chin to her chest and laced her fingers around her knees, deep in thought. Finally she looked at him with appealing doe eyes, big and velvet brown. “I’m sorry.”

David said nothing. She was sorry, huh? Well, so was he. Although his label as a quitter had accustomed him to the scowls, profane insults and pitying stares, he was not prepared for his angel of mercy to give him the bum’s rush.

At the same time, the shameful, niggardly part of him that had prompted his current state of disgrace said that he deserved no more.

THE CAB DROPPED them off at the scene of the accident. David’s motorcycle remained at the curb, although a bystander had stood it up. “Small miracle,” he said to himself, rubbing at the scratches that marred the shiny metal of the sleek, expensive Honda. The only major damage was a large dent in the front fender.

Unsure of what to do or say, Brooke studied the facade of the department store as if she hadn’t been working there ever since college. Stone steps led to the stately four-story stone building. Above a thick, carved lintel were the pitted letters that had spelled out O.M. Worthington since the store had opened as a haberdashery at the turn of the twentieth century. On either side of the double doors were her babies—the display windows. Not large, not ostentatious, but her own private gallery of sorts. She hadn’t had the guts to go as far creatively as she might like, but with Alyce Simmons’s support, she believed that her time was coming. The Gaultier display was only the beginning.

“Where are you headed?” she asked David, without looking at him. “Back to the hotel?”

“Maybe.”

“Remember what the doctor said about watching for signs of concussion.” He’d be all right on his own, she reassured herself. She had her own mess to clean up inside the store.

And out. Her fingers spread over the butter-soft leather of the minidress in an involuntary caress. Despite the scolding conscience that said she must return it as soon as possible, she was reluctant. The dress was outrageous, far beyond what she’d normally wear, which made it more freeing than anything she’d ever put on.

Maybe too freeing, considering her lack of underpants. She’d been on edge about that all night. Particularly when the paparazzi had reappeared and she’d feared they’d snap a Britney-crotch shot of her, and even more particularly when David had caressed her thigh. She’d shocked herself when her impulse was to let him continue.

Yet another impulse ignored. She’d slammed her thighs shut so fast she’d almost snapped his hand off at the wrist.

“What’d the doc say?” David pinched the bridge of his nose. “I forget. My memory’s spotty.”

“Are you…?” She took a quick glance. Of course he’s teasing. He had an impish quality, although nothing in his broad, muscled body or square-jawed face was the least bit elfin. The long, tousled hair, maybe—but mostly it was about attitude.

That, and his dancing, roguish eyes. They seemed to look right into her and know that there was a Brooke, a long-hidden Brooke, who wanted to come out and play.

“Nice try.” She slipped off the jacket and held it out to him.

He came closer to snag it. “Please.” This time, sincerity underwrote every word. “Don’t go back to work.”

“I have to. I left things in a state. The window’s half undone.”

He tried the charming, off-center grin. “You promised to look after me.”

True.

He gave her a head bob. “C’mon.”

She was leaning that way. Literally—her body swaying toward his as if he were the magnetic north pole. “Something tells me you don’t have health care on your mind.” Neither did she.

“Spend the night with me, Brooke. I’ll take you to all my favorite places in the city. We’ll stay up ’til dawn. It’ll be an unforgettable experience.”

More than he knew.

Her heart raced. The need to say yes bubbled inside her like an underground brook. But she couldn’t do it, not this way—the window a mess, him dizzy with pain and high on medication, her gone completely out of her mind, lacking inhibitions or panties.

She wasn’t there. Not yet.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I just can’t.”

His battered face fell. The genuine disappointment touched off her sympathy and underlined her longing. Her throat ached, for both of them.

“I have to return to work.” She gestured. “I’m responsible for changing the window and it must be done tonight.” Brooke took a couple of steps away from him, her feet heavy in the strappy shoes. “I’m sorry. I really am. Some other time, maybe…”

She thought he was going to let her go without another word, but before she’d reached the corner, she heard his footsteps pounding up behind her. Her heart leaped as she spun to face him.

But he didn’t try to stop her. Instead, he dropped his jacket around her shoulders. “Here, you’ll need this.” He wrapped the heavy, faded denim tightly around her body. His arms were bars of steel, hugging her. “It’s chilly out here.”

Their noses met. She tingled all over with the type of fever chill that would normally send her to bed. Not a bad prescription for tonight, either.

“But you’ll be even colder on the motorcycle.” Her voice was barely audible. “Maybe you shouldn’t be driving in your condition.”

“I’ll be okay.” He shifted, his body slowly dragging against hers, radiating heat even through the denim. Touched his tongue to her bottom lip, took a small lick. A thrill shot through her. “I can drive. You’re a good tonic for recovery. Plus, I’ll be extra careful, because I’m coming back for you tomorrow.”

He couldn’t be serious. Perhaps “tomorrow” was the equivalent of “I’ll call you.”

She didn’t know how to respond, but that didn’t really matter since she couldn’t speak. David had placed his lips near hers. She closed her eyes and waited for a kiss that didn’t quite come.

He held her lip between his teeth, ever so gently. Both of his closed around it and he nibbled. She could not move, except to close her eyes with a sound of surrender that came from deep in her throat. His tongue ran back and forth, laving the stimulated flesh he held so delicately.

Back and forth, back and forth. How could he be so patient?

Her nostrils flared, taking in air. She was trying not to pant like an animal. Her tongue had never felt so sensitive in her mouth, flicking and furling in anticipation.

With a long, warm, sucking pull, he released her lip. His face tilted back and he paused for so long she became certain that she’d collapse to the sidewalk with frustration if he didn’t complete the kiss.

The puckish grin returned, the one that lit up his eyes. “Dang, girl, you’re making my head swim.”

She shook her head at him. “Dang, girl? Where are you from?”

The grin dropped away, but he answered lightly enough. “A lil’ do-nothing, go-nowhere town in Georgia.”

“Ah, a Southerner.” As if she couldn’t tell by his accent. “I’m a Bostonian, through and through.”

His gaze skimmed her dress, what there was to see of it. “I like the northern states.”

Out of the weak, wobbly mess that was her mesmerized body, her nipples sprang up like bullets. “But you left the city.”

“Like a skunk running from its own stink.”

She smiled at his exaggerated accent. “And now you’re back…?”

“Visiting friends,” was all he said. He squeezed and released her. “Let me get my bike. I’ll walk you to the door. This might be a ritzy neighborhood, but you still can’t be wandering around alone in that dress.”

Brooke nodded, surprised by how let down she was that he hadn’t asked again for her to go with him. After that kiss, she might not have been able to say no, even though leaving window dressings scattered in public view was strictly against store policy. The conscientious employee part of her should be thrilled that now she could go back inside and finish up the job with no one the wiser except the night watchman.

It would be as if putting on the dress and meeting David Carerra had never happened.

But I’ll know. I’ll remember for the rest of my life that once I could have run off with a sweet-talking stranger, but was too chicken to take the chance.

ON THE WAY to work the next morning, Brooke stopped off at a newsstand and bought the early edition of every newspaper she could find. She took them to a coffee shop and sat down with a double espresso. After working until two in the morning, then tossing and turning in bed when she should have been sleeping, she needed the extra jolt of caffeine.

After a healthy swallow and a mental kick in the scaredy-pants, she paged through the first paper. Nothing. Thank you, God.

She picked up the Insider. The trashy tabloid had never darkened a Winfield doorstep, but she was familiar with it because it had been the guilty pleasure of her mother and her friend, Reba. Primarily Reba, who considered herself an insider in the entertainment industry because she’d done some modeling in the mad, mod world of the sixties and seventies.

Brooke found a small item on an inside page about David’s accident. DISGRACED BASEBALL HERO KISSES CEMENT. Nice.

There were two small photos. Her stomach dropped into her shoes, but a quick scan relieved her anxiety. One showed the overturned motorcycle. The other was of David leaving the hospital with a bruised face and bandaged head, strong-arming a photographer. Brooke was a blur in the corner of the shot, mentioned only as an unidentified female companion. The intimation was that she was a pickup from his night out on the town. She might have been insulted at that, but under the circumstances she could only feel fortunate. She’d lucked out, big time.

The remaining papers were equally unremarkable. One sports reporter speculated about Carerra’s return to the city, suggesting that he would soon rejoin the team. She wondered if that was true. David’s attitude hadn’t been reconciliatory. He’d seemed rather downbeat, in fact, except when he’d been hitting on her.